I found this recipe a few days ago and tried it out yesterday. The taste was good, but I thought I was going to wind up with a sauce and what I got was some lime flavored water at the bottom of the skillet. It still tasted good, but it would have been better if I ate it more like a fajita. Now that I think about it, maybe next time I’ll marinate it all day and then just make fajitas with it.
Anyways, I want to try it again. I’ll use quite a bit more limeade and tequila so I have more juice, but what can I do to thicken it up? I’d like to see it about the consistency of an alfredo sauce. Can I just do that with corn starch (and water)? Maybe I could just serve it with alfredo sauce.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if the parmesan cheese was supposed to be mixed in towards the end of the cooking?
If there is enough sugar in the limeade you can just reduce the sauce, but in that case it won’t be a very silky smooth sauce but probably more like a glaze or syrup.
If you want a cream sauce like alfredo you are probably going to need some cream and/or cornstarch.
Otherwise you could try mixing your cornstarch into some room temperature butter and add that to thicken it. Remember that cornstarch can break down at a full boil, so I wouldn’t cook that sauce too long after adding it. I would probably removing the chicken and veggies after cooking them and then thickening the remaining sauce.
Generally, by adding a thickening agent - flour, cornstarch, or tapioca.
But if you add the thickening agent directly into a hot liquid, it will form clumps.
There are generally three ways in traditional cuisine to ‘mix up’ the thickening agent before adding it to a hot liquid so that it won’t clump. These are - cold liquids, other dry solids, and solid fats.
You may need to experiment to figure out which you can add into your sauce to get the results you want. One method that I remember using for gravy, (basically just a hot sauce made from meat drippings,) is to put some all-purpose flour and cold water in a jar or plastic tumbler, cover it, and shake very well until thoroughly mixed, and then add this to the juice.
The easiest way I know where it will work, always, is to dilute corn/potato starch with cold water (just mix about 1 part starch with 3 parts or less cold water until it’s a pretty even mixture) and then drop it in with the hot liquid. Cook on low heat and stir until thickened. A corn starch mixture added to hot sauce will turn the sauce pale/whiteish and then turn back to almost the original color while it thickens.
Another traditional one is to mix cold fat (butter) and flour by kneading and then mixing the result with the hot liquid. From all I’ve read that’s harder to do right and the result may not be that good.
I just wanted to add my personal experience and a little more detail. Also, corn starch is pretty flavourless, but not completely, so you don’t want to add masses of the stuff. A spoonful or two to a large bowl is about the maximum unless you’re working with something that’s already strongly flavored or you’re in an emergency.